What do baseball, golf, a cruise, and Toronto have in common? These are fun events coming up thanks to your involvement with Rotary. For details, see the upcoming events section of this newsletter.

Next meeting:

Tuesday, Feb. 21st, 2018

Port St. Lucie Rotary Business Meeting

Our business meetings are held monthly, and we intentionally do not have a guest speaker so that we have time to discuss important projects and other matters affecting our Club. This is where the work of our Club gets done. All members should make every effort to attend.

ROTARY DISTRICT 6930

conference

JUNE 2ND-6TH, 2018

Day 1 - Tampa ♦ Day 2 - Key West ♦ Day 3 - Havana

Day 4 - At Sea ♦ Day 5 - Tampa

We will be the first group of Rotarians to visit Havana in almost 60 years.

During the recent U.S. government shut down, a bipartisan group of roughly two-dozen senators helped craft the funding deal to reopen the government. The group used a "talking stick" as a tool to facilitate their meeting, only allowing the senator with the stick to speak in an effort to cut down on interruptions.The use of the talking stick originated in Indigenous North American customs and is today also commonly used in restorative practices such as the circle, a process used to build connections and resolve disputes in community.

Sometimes the talking stick is replaced by another object that has special significance to the group or facilitator using it. For example, I have heard a story of a group of construction workers having a difficult conversation about workplace safety using the hard hat of a deceased workmate as a talking piece to pass around in the circle.

Regardless of the object used, the talking piece ensures the equal voice and respectful communication necessary for cooperation.

The story about the senators got me thinking about other restorative principles and practices used by restorative justice organizations I have worked with. I have learned a few key strategies from working with these groups.

Lesson one Always make time for relationships.

Every meeting with our whole staff begins with a connection circle in which each person answers a relationship-building question. Our staff takes turns facilitating those circles and picking the question and talking piece. The work always gets done, but plenty of time is made to laugh together, to check in about our lives, and offer support.

Above all else, restorative practices prioritize the building and maintaining of healthy relationships. We all have a want and a need to feel belonging and the only way to accomplish that is through opportunities for genuine connection. Research has shown that when we feel connected, heard, and appreciated at work, productivity increases. Having positive relationships with the people you work with also makes it easier to collaborate and compromise.

Lesson two Establish a productive way to deal with conflict and remain open to feedback.

A Restorative conversation is a way of addressing one-on-one conflict that focuses on the impacts of an issue and what can be done to make things right moving forward. Longmont Community Justice Partnership trains volunteers in this method so they have a restorative way to resolves disputes among themselves over unreturned phone calls or differences in facilitation styles. Because staff members are all trained in the model, they have a tool for dealing with conflict and it doesn’t fester or come up again later passive aggressively.

Lesson three Listen and show you are listening.

Active listening is a pillar of restorative practices. Facilitators are taught to show that they are listening through eye contact, body language, questions, and reflective statements. Active listening fuels cooperation.

Bringing the values, principles, and tools of restorative practices into our daily lives, families, and work communities allows us to create a social environment conducive to cooperation. Like the simple but powerful talking stick, these practices foster healthy community interactions.

About the author: Lindsey Pointer is a restorative practices facilitator, trainer, and researcher. She is pursuing a Ph.D. in Restorative Justice at Victoria University in New Zealand with support from a Rotary Global Grant Scholarship and the Fulbright Program from the U.S. State Department.

February is Peace and Conflict Prevention/Resolution Month

ElsaMarie D’Silva of Mumbai began her career as a flight attendant, eventually rising to become vice president of a planning network for one of India’s largest airlines. Learning about the fatal 2012 gang rape of a young woman in Delhi, an unusually heinous crime that led to public outrage, D’Silva made a dramatic career change.

She is now the founder and CEO of the Red Dot Foundation which works with nongovernmental organizations in India, Nepal and Kenya to address street harassment and violence against women. In addition to community workshops, the foundation empowers women to document catcalling, groping, and other incidents through an online crowd mapping platform called Safecity.

D’Silva was a Rotary Peace Fellow at Chulalongkorm University in Bangkok. There she learned that the work she does is actually peace building. Through her foundation she is trying to help people understand gender stereotypes that reinforce toxic masculinity on a daily basis. Safecity gives victims a safe space to discuss this and understand each other’s point of view. It also helps them navigate these complex issues and become agents of change.

Your contribution to the Rotary Peace Fellows enables this to happen.

Tuesday, February 20th

Club meeting

Tuesday, February 27th

Club meeting

Saturday, March 17th at 1 p.m.

Rotary Day at the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches - Washington Nationals vs. Houston Astros - located in West Palm Beach. $20 per person. To reserve tickets, call (561) 325-9801.

Saturday, April 28th

Port St. Lucie Golf Tournament

June 2nd-6th

2018 District 6930 Conference - Key West - Havana

June 23rd-27th

Rotary International Conference - Toronto

An Amish girl and her mother were visiting a mall. They were amazed by almost everything they saw, but especially by two shiny, silver walls that could move apart and back together again.

The girl asked, "What is this, mother?" The mother, never having seen an elevator responded, "I have never seen anything like this in my life. I don’t know what it is."

While the girl and her mother watched with amazement, an old man in a wheelchair rolled up to the moving walls and pressed a button. The walls opened and the man rolled between them into a small room. The walls closed and the girl and her mother watched the small numbers above the walls light up sequentially. They continued to watch until the last number was reached, and they watched some more as the numbers began to light in reverse order. The walls opened up again and a hunky young man stepped out.

The mother, not taking her eyes off the young man, said quietly to her daughter, "Go get your father."